SBI adds 1% on third-party education and wallet loads

SBI Card has found two more spend categories to tax. Education payments made through third-party apps — think CRED, Paytm and friends — now attract a 1% fee, and wallet loads get the same 1% clip. Pay the institution directly and nothing changes.

The pattern here is unmistakable across Indian issuers: anything that looks like manufactured spend — routing large, low-risk payments through an intermediary to farm points — is getting a fee bolted onto it. Wallet loads have long been the classic move: load a wallet on a credit card, earn the points, spend the wallet. That door is now 1% narrower at SBI.

The severity is minor because the workaround is trivial. Direct education payments still work; you just lose the convenience layer.

Our take: never pay a 1% fee to earn points worth less than 1%. Move tuition payments to the college’s own gateway, stop loading wallets on SBI cards, and let the intermediary apps keep their convenience for someone else’s money.